Control of Six Risk Factors Would Reduce CVD Mortality by One-Third
By adopting a comprehensive plan to reduce tobacco use, harmful alcohol use, salt intake, physical inactivity, and elevated blood pressure and glucose levels, countries can a go a long way toward reducing the risk of premature mortality from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including CVD, according to a new report.
In fact, if countries achieved the goals set out by the 25×25 World Health Assembly (WHA) road map, there would be a 22% reduction in premature deaths from CVD, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory disease in men and a 19% reduction in women. Overall, controlling these six risk factors would reduce CV mortality by more than one-third.
If it’s just business as usual and risk factors aren’t reduced, there would only be an 11% reduction in NCDs in men and a 10% reduction in women, according to investigators.
The NCD road map, which aims to reduce premature mortality from NCDs by 25% by 2025—the so-called 25×25 target—has been adopted by the WHA and was the focus of the first session on day one of the World Congress of Cardiology (WCC) 2014 Scientific Sessions in Melbourne, Australia.
Dr Majid Ezzati (Imperial College London, UK), who led the study of the effects of risk-factor control on premature NCD mortality, said the largest driver of the overall reduction is the decrease in CVD deaths. “In some sense, if you put aside tobacco, which obviously has large effects on cancer and CVD, these are really CV targets we’re looking at rather than NCD targets,” he told heartwire . “We don’t have targets for a lot of the drivers of big cancers.”
The article by Ezzati, first author Dr Vasilis Kontis (Imperial College London), and colleagues was published online May 3, 2014 in the Lancet to coincide with the WCC meeting.
High-Level UN Meeting on Noncommunicable diseases
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